Welcome to another episode of Q&A! This
week we've got a really cool prequel pitch,
and the conclusion of last week's letter
from the King of Content.

First let's talk about Tales...

The Letters

Tales of Tales

Could you explain Team Destiny in a way that
ties the games together
via lineage. What teams have developed which
games?

-Macstorm

Wheels

I
can most certainly do that! It
is important to note that the
distinction of "Team Destiny"
isn't an internal term used by
the actual developers. It is a
fan term used to describe a
subset of the Tales
games developed by many
of the same team that worked on
Tales of Destiny 2 and
the subsequent games that
expanded on many of the gameplay
ideas established there. Primary
to these games is a faster and
better established battle system
thanks to the elimination of
"magic points" (or TP in the
case of Tales
games). This lends the
games a much better action
focus, since the constant worry
of preserving TP for tougher
encounters is no longer there.
Until Tales of Graces,
these games all stuck to 2D
battles (except for Tales
of Rebirth which added
a bit of 3D by giving players
multiple "lanes" to switch
between), and this single fact
seems to be the reason we never
saw localization of any of these
games. We've heard stories in
the past of Sony not letting 2D
type games get localized, so
that could have held them back.
Perhaps Namco just didn't think
they'd do well? Regardless, its
good to finally have one of
these games localized. If you're
interested in trying some of
them out, the PS2 games are all
pretty cheap (Destiny,
Destiny 2, Rebirth),
The PSP ports of Rebirth
and Destiny2
have best of versions for easier
importing,
and Tales
of Hearts is also cheap
so long as you import the CG
movie version. They're worth
playing and there are plenty of
guides out there to help!

Where
are all the sailors?

Hey Wheels,

Been awhile, and I got to your last game
prompt a little late for the
real contest, but I'm in anyway for the fun.
But first, a little cross-talk to JuMeSyn,
about Devil
Survivor 2, because I can
completely empathize. I have currently
put the game down at the
same stupidly annoying boss-fight he
mentioned. That said, I want
to highly recommend the first game, as it is
in my opinion at least,
much better in terms of story and characters
(I found the level of
immaturity in DS2 rather
annoying at times), and the combat system is
nearly identical (with
only slight improvements made for DS2).
The
final
bosses are still really difficult and
somewhat cheap, but I
was able to actually beat one of the harder
paths on my first
play-through (an achievement I am quite
proud of).

Wheels

Good
to hear from you again! Sad to
hear that Devil
Survivor 2 has some end
game issues (and story issues?).
I'm really enjoying what I've
played so far of DS1
on 3DS, so I can second your
opinion that he should try the
first game. My only complaint so
far is I think it gets a bit too
wordy at times, and takes way
too long to get to your first
battle. Still, I'd call these
minor issues. Hope it hasn't
turned him off the SMT
series!

Also, since it's out on Steam, I've been
thinking of getting Ys: Oath in
Felghana. I'm new
to the series, so are you at all familiar
with that entry?

Wheels

Very
much so, my good sir! You've
come to the right place. I
actually imported the game from
Japan well in advance of its PSP
release here. It's what
solidified my love of the
series. It's a simple and fast
paced action RPG. There's not an
overbearing story or complicated
mechanics, just lots of dungeons
and challenging bosses to
contend with. The music in the
game is simply astounding, and
serves to intensify the action.
I really can't recommend it
enough. This
trailer should give you a
good idea what to expect.

Anyway enough of that, time for my prequel
proposal:Pokémon
Origins
Brass/Steel
Pokémon training and their battles
have always been the sole province
of the elite, as who else could the custom
crafted Apricorns needed for
their capture, but a new invention stands
poised to change all of this,
the Pokéball. Mass produced on
a scale Apricorns never could be,
this artificial Pokémon storage
device will cause a revolution not only
in Pokémon training, but in society
as a whole. In a century of
invention, which saw the development of
trains, steam engines,
airships, and a myriad other new devices,
the Pokéball will overshadow
them all. And this game is the story
of how it happened.
Starting on the verge of this
"Pokéball Revolution," the game's
protagonist is a child who has dreamed of
training Pokémon since
childhood, but being an orphan didn't stand
the slightest chance of
acquiring one for themselves. A
miraculous opportunity comes when
for them, when Prof. Linden recruits you and
another child from the
orphanage (who of course is the players
childhood nemesis) to help test
her newest invention, the
Pokéball. What you do with this
new-found opportunity is up to you.

Wheels

Wow,
I can honestly say I never
expected anyone to come up with
a Pokémon prequel. I like
the idea so far though: it would
be cool to sort of explore some
of the conventions the series
never really explains.

Over the course of the game, based on your
actions, you will be able to
side with a number of factions who have
different visions for this new
technology. Right off the bat, there
will be the Elite Four,
representatives of the old nobility and the
wealthy merchants, who have
no interest in seeing Pokémon
training spread to the masses and,
although caught off guard by Prof Linden's
invention, take action to
stop its spread. As the game goes you
will also encounter a
fledgling crime syndicate, calling itself
Team Rocket, that sees the
use of Pokémon as its ticket to power
in the criminal underworld.
A third faction, centered around a group
revolutionaries from the
underclasses, sees how Pokémon
training could make life better for
everyone and has ambitious plans to
establish a series of gyms where
anyone can meet to train their
Pokémon, and will fight against any
trying to use Pokémon to exert power
over other humans. There
will also be a number of more neutral groups
you can interact with,
such as Prof Linden's newly established
Pokémon research institute.

Wheels

I
like it even more! Pokémon
could really stand to
have a bit more story, and this
sounds like the perfect way to
do it. The series is pretty open
ended about how you build your
team, so why not put a bit of
that into the narration as well?
I think fans would go crazy for
this.

As for gameplay, the game will be an SRPG in
style, turning the
exploration map into a grid based arena when
foes appear. As the
game is set before Pokémon training
became widespread, the orderly
rules of Pokémon battles do not yet
exist except within the elite (and
they will happily break their rules if you
oppose them). There is
no rule for the number of Pokémon you
can field at once (although
practical limits prevent you from
coordinating more than six at a
time), and given the initial scarcity of
Pokéballs it will be a while
before you have more than one. More
importantly there are no
rules forbidding Pokémon from
attacking humans. This means that
your own fighting skills will matter as much
as your Pokémon's, and
there may be some battles with gang's of
human opponents (since while
trained Pokémon are scarce, weapons
are not). The game will also
feature even more opportunities both within
combat and during
exploration to apply Pokémon
abilities to the environment, and pretty
much any ability could be used to interact
with the environment in some
way (often with tactical options).

Wheels

Interesting
idea. It would be quite good to
break the series out of its
standards for combat, and bring
more tactics into the mix.
There's a lot of variation they
could then work with. Have many
different classes of humans,
mixed with the various
Pokémon who change via
evolution. The possibilities are
limitless!

The game itself will have a mission based
structure, many of which will
be based on associated factions. Some
missions will just be
relatively traditional side quests, but many
will have big impacts on
the rest of the game. For example, if
you undertake the Elite
Four's mission to sabotage Prof Linden's
Pokéball factory, it will make
the price of Pokéballs skyrocket
(although the Elite Four will happily
reward you with custom apricorns to make up
for it) and decrease the
number of other trainers you are
facing. Alternatively, if you
take on the Gyms mission to fend off
an attack against their
first gym in Viridian City, you may start
encountering more trainers
who will happily duel you in a friendly
manner. Of course, there will
also be free battles for training, against
either wild Pokémon or other
trainers.

Wheels

I
think this structure would work
fine so long as exploration is
still available for hunting down
rare Pokémon and such, I
think fans would eat this up.
Perhaps have some sort of
persistent online battle where
players fight for a certain
faction?

As for what Pokémon will be
available, most will be similar to previous
games. Artificial, highly technological
Pokémon will not yet
exist (such as Magnemite and Porygon),
although there may be a few
steampunk themed equivalents. The
other "new" Pokémon will be a
handful of Pokémon that were driven
extinct by later games due to
overhunting, but are still around in this
time period. The big
difference, though, will be in the scale of
what you will be able to
access. Since even mass-produced
Pokéballs are still a hot
commodity and improved Pokéballs
(great balls, etc.) don't yet exist,
you won't be able to capture the most
powerful Pokémon you may
encounter, such as any legendaries.
There may be some legendaries
and other powerful, more intelligent
Pokémon, that you could convince
to join you for key battles that are threats
to them as well, but
actually catching them just isn't going to
happen. Overall, you
will be working with a smaller array of
Pokémon, most of which will be
acquired through missions and plot rather
than catching them personally.

Wheels

I
like how you easily find a way
to fit in "new" Pokémon
as that would have been one of
the first issues I brought up. I
think it would be cool to make
some legendaries that you could
recruit, but just make it
insanely hard to do so. There's
really a lot to explore here.
Perhaps we see some types of
Pokémon that eventually
evolve into the types common in
the series today? I think the
developers could have a lot of
fun with this concept.

So what do you think this time?

friendOfAgnes

Wheels

I
think that not only is this idea
brilliant, its something I could
realistically see Nintendo doing
if someone could pitch the devs
on it. I think the fans would
eat it up, and though it may not
be as big a hit as a standard
game in the series, there's no
doubt it could be a very
profitable endevour for Nintendo
and a way for them to experiment
with new ideas for the series.
Here's hoping they make
something like this!

Arch-Duke of Content (Part
2)

Better do a connection challenge - how about
7th Heaven
(1927) with Vandal Hearts?

Wheels

I think it may be time to retire six
degrees of separation. Perhaps we
can come up with some other mad
contest? Anyway: 7th
Heaven was distributed by
Fox Films -> Fox Films eventually
became part of what is now 20th
Century Fox -> Fox and Sony
pictures teamed up for a home video
venture in Brazil -> Sony owns
TriStar Pictures -> TriStar
pictures distributed the Silent
Hill film -> Konami
owns the Silent Hill franchise
-> Konami published Vandel
Hearts.

Playing both Shenmue games
has made something very clear to me.
More games need to indulge
in having players go through the monotony of
getting a job, don't you
think? It really makes the fanciful
parts of a game stand out
more if you've been spending long stretches
doing menial tasks like, I
don't know, moving crates with a forklift or
moving them through team lifting
to get money. That's what games are
lacking in, don't you
think? All the realism that goes into
an actual life spent at the
job?

Wheels

Yes, I agree! Just imagine how much
better the touching story of Lunar
would have been if instead of just
running off to the main continent,
the main character had to spend a
few years saving money and doing
team lifting mini games during his
job as a dock worker! This would
have been amazing!

Seriously though, just look at the Atelier
series for a way to do this
and not have it be awful. The games
are all about doing a job, but they
make it fun!

All the Mega
Man X talk from
you reminds me that Command
Mission
is out there. My zest for the series
has faded somewhat, but I
could still be enticed to play that pretty
easily. What think you?

Wheels

I'd say despite the massive
number of Mega Man games, at
the end of the day even the mediocre
ones can be fun to just sit down and
enjoy. I haven't played Command
Mission quite yet, but I'd
wager its pretty fun so long as you
don't expect the world. Then again,
Mega
Man Legends seems a better
series to go to for some RPGish Mega
Man.

Put Cary Grant into an RPG! You can do
it!

Wheels

I can't! I'm afraid that I don't
think I've ever seen any of his
movies. Perhaps you can suggest
something to fix this grave
injustice?

I'm supposed to poke you about Valkyrie
Profile. Ask yourself how no
one knew that Loki would do
something bad when you reach the climax.

Wheels

Yes, I have been playing that a bit
on PSP. I've made slow progress, but
I imagine eventually it will suck me
in and I'll finish it in short
order. Don't we just assume Loki is
up to no good in any fiction that
features him? I can't imagine a time
where it wasn't the case.

Well, I DID review Final Fantasy XII
not long ago - and I had a fair amount to
say about it there.
Leaving the obvious Star Wars
parallels aside though, the story just felt
full of things that Matsuno
probably wanted to explore in greater detail
and that were then
abandoned. Good thing story isn't the
only reason I play games,
eh? It may have been a painful
learning experience, but realizing
that neutral enemies on the field should not
be provoked by me was
memorable. I probably wouldn't have
recognized Zeromus without
his name showing up onscreen just due to how
different he looked in 3D,
but getting a pounding from him was also
memorable. I almost
regret not poking around everywhere
and getting slaughtered by
the incredibly powerful things that live in
that game... but nah.
I'll live without it.

Wheels

I think the story is probably a
shell of what Matsuno wanted.
Conventional wisdom is that higher
ups mucked with things too much,
inserted a younger hip protaganist,
and eventually once Matsuno had to
leave the project, they had to
cobble the pieces together. Who
knows? Maybe his story was too
ambitious and what's left is the
best they could do. I'd love to get
some kind of insider story as to
what exactly happened. I have a
feeling both sides are at fault.
Gameplay we'll agree, turned out
quite well. I can't tell you how
many times I screwed up and attacked
some of those neutral enemies!
Anyway, I think some Western
developers could actually learn a
lot from Final Fantasy XII.
Imagine how much better Dragon
Age could have been if it
had FFXII super fast
menu controls instead of the mess of
an interface BioWare put in it...

With all the unusual problems War in
the North has been providing, you
still might find it preferable
to the SNES Lord of the Rings
game. Maybe?

That's all for now. Should be
sufficient, though.
JuMeSyn

Wheels

You'd think I'd prefer War in
the North, but alas the
SNES Lord of the Rings game
is actually far less broken than the
PS3 insanity I had to deal with.
That SNES game certainly had a lot
of issues, such as balancing, not
knowing where the heck to go, and no
save system. However, it had one
saving grace: the password system
could get you past any place you get
stuck. If War in the North
had a password system, I could have
found one to get to the last stage
(I had gotten through everything
else) and just completed the dang
thing. It was really that bad!